Up until a week ago my daughters had roughly 23 Barbie dolls between the two of them.
Hoarders?
Maybe.
I secretly thew away the old and "dying" dolls and managed to leave only 5 dolls.
As I was clearing this mess I had a thought come to me that there may be a better toy out there for my girls to play with.
Then I read this blog post
and the thought of ridding our home of Barbie's completely has been constantly on my mind.
I happen to agree with everything she says both from observation and personal experience as a child.
Several months ago I realized how much my girls enjoy playing with Calico Critters:
And so yesterday I bought them each a family of fuzzy animals.
I made them give me a Barbie in payment for the critters.
They didn't hesitate for a split second.
3 Barbies left.
My observations of the girls playing Barbie vs. the Calico Critters are this:
When they play Barbies, the dolls have attitudes (usually) and they're usually have a fantasy kind of life. (The witch captured her and she must be rescued, etc.)
When they play Calico Critters the animals take care of each other. They are teachers, or cleaning house, you know normal life stuff.
I don't think it's a bad thing for the girls to play fantasy life, but I like that they role play motherhood and real life even more.
Go read this article and come back and tell me what you think!
Am I being looney and over dramatic or loving and taking advantage of a great turning point here?
3 comments:
I do keep going back and forth with barbies...I see the points and to me they are valid. I am on the fence still and undecided about what to do :)
Wow. It's true. I probably wouldn't buy barbies for my kids. I always preferred the small plastic toy animals etc anyways. :) You might enjoy this video...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrbyZeEuNxI
That is super interesting. My first thoughts were that really, it's probably not a big deal either way. However, while reading the article memories of playing inappropriate with Barbie jumped in my mind. She probably really is an inapropriate toy. I can't believe her original idea stemed from a man's sexual doll...(did I read that right?!)! Emi doesn't love Barbie, but she has all of my old, good stuff. Maybe my Barbie house could be a house for animals?! ;)
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